Casablanca

Analysis of Major Characters

Casablanca: A Classic Hollywood Film with an Un-Classic Ending

Themes

The Difficulty of Neutrality

In love and in war, neutrality is difficult for Rick,
Ilsa, and Louis to maintain.Rick makes a point
of not being involved in politics. He refuses to discuss the war,
shuts up Carl's attempts to tell him about meetings of the underground,
and does everything in his power to present himself as nonpartisan.
Later on, though, just as the United States abandoned neutrality
in December 1941, Rick shifts from neutrality
to commitment. His sympathy for the Allies has always been evident
in small acts, such as his refusal to allow the Deutsche Bank employee
entry into the back room of his casino, but his partisanship grows
more overt as the film proceeds. Louis undergoes a similar transformation,
and by the end of the film, neutrality seems an untenable position.
Rick's Café, as well as Casablanca itself, is an oasis in the desert,
a paradise far removed from the troubles of the world. Yet the underground
and black market activities that take place at Rick's belie these
qualities. The battle of German and French anthems that erupts in
the bar shows that Rick's actually teems with political passion.

When Ilsa visits Rick in his apartment and confesses that
she still loves him, she does her best to be neutral in the undeclared
war between the two men who love her. For as long as she can, she
tries to deny the dilemma she faces. When she finally acknowledges
the dilemma and realizes she has to decide between Rick and Laszlo,
she leaves the choice in Rick's hands. No clean, painless resolution
is possible, and a choice must be made. In war as in love, Casablanca suggests,
neutrality is unsustainable.

The Inescapable Past

The first words of "As Time Go By" announce, "You must
remember this," and in Casablanca, Rick, Ilsa,
and Louis cannot escape the past and their memories. Even when characters
try to flee from the past, and many do, the past catches up with
them. On two occasions, Ilsa believes she has lost men in her life,
only to have them reappear at the most inconvenient times. In Casablanca,
Rick has created a lifestyle for himself that he believes will allow
him to forget his painful memories, but the war and the flock of
refugees hoping to escape to America remind him of an event or events
from his mysterious life that prevent his return home. Likewise,
Ilsa's arrival in Casablanca reminds Rick of their painful love
story, the memory of which he has been trying to erase. The only
character who suggests that the past can be escaped is Louis, who
seems able to switch alliances breezily. Yet even Louis eventually
acknowledges that his decisions have consequences. He recognizes
that he must flee Casablanca because there is no escaping the way
he helped Rick. He might want to ignore the past, but in this case
he cannot.

The Power of Lady Luck

Luck figures prominently in Casablanca,
especially in Rick's Café. One of the bar's most popular activities
is gambling, and one of Sam's most popular songs is "Knock on Wood."
Mr. and Mrs. Brandel, the young Bulgarian couple, demonstrate how
luck functions in the movie. "How is lady luck treating you?" Louis
asks Mrs. Brandel as Mr. Brandel gambles at the roulette table.
Mr. Brandel is trying to win enough money to buy two exit visas.
For Louis, luck is the force that brings a beautiful woman like
Mrs. Brandel to him and allows him to try to take advantage of her
desperate situation. For him, luck is a lady, a sexualized concept
that implies both seduction and powerlessness. Rick has a different
view of luck, and he intervenes to help the unlucky Brandels, rigging
the roulette game so the couple hits the jackpot twice, "miraculously"
gaining the amount they need. When Mrs. Brandel approaches Rick
to thank him for his generous deed, he dismisses her thanks by saying
her husband is "just a lucky guy." This line has a double meaning.
The literal meaning is that Brandel is just a lucky guy at the roulette
table, which obviously isn't true. The metaphorical, and true, meaning
is that he is lucky to have such a courageous, loving wife.

Particular people in Casablanca can bring
both good and bad luck to each other. When Ilsa and Sam first speak,
Sam tells Ilsa she should stay away from Rick because she's "bad
luck" to him. But this statement isn't entirely true. Ilsa broke
Rick's heart so tremendously that over a year later he still hasn't
recovered, but, in this case, heartbreak has nothing to do with
luck. "Luck" is simply a word used to cover up a more painful truth.
Luck in Casablanca is also not entirely free of
human influence. Ugarte is arrested while gambling, which suggests
that he is unlucky to have been caught. The truth is that his own
actions of murdering and stealing, rather than bad fortune, are
the cause of his arrest.

Motifs

Exile and Travel

The city of Casablanca is filled with foreigners, most
of whom are exiles. Among the characters in the film, only the doorman
Abdul is actually Moroccan. Though some characters, such as the
colonialist French or the conquering Germans, are not in Casablanca
as exiles, the majority are. Rick appears at first to be just another
disenchanted American expatriate, but he is actually an exile from
America, to which he cannot return, and also from France, where
he cannot return as long as the Germans still occupy it. An exile
is someone who can never return home. Along with the idea of exile comes
the idea of travel. The movie opens with a montage of various means
of transport, including ships, trains, cars, and planes, that refugees
use on their way to Casablanca. These images of hurried travel contrast
with images of leisurely voyage, such as a car ride through Paris
and a boat ride down the Seine, both of which Rick and Ilsa share
during the Paris flashback. Travel can be both a means, as in the
case of the refugee, and an end in itself, as in the case of a tourist,
but for the exile, it is never-ending. Unlike both the refugee going
to a new home and the tourist soon to return home, the exile is
perpetually homeless, traveling forever.

Dreaming of America in Africa

Related to the motif of exile is the motif of America,
which is where all of Casablanca's refugees hope to go. If Casablanca
is the oasis in the desert, America is the promised land on the
desert's far side. America offers itself not as a place of temporary
exile, but as a new home, even for foreigners. The difference between
the refugee and the perpetual exile is determined by the ability
to go to America, because America represents the final stop on the
refugee path, where exile ends and an actual new life begins. Only
Rick cannot go to America. Instead, he must remain in Africa. At
the end of the film, he leaves Casablanca, which is on the eastern
edge of Africa, for Brazzaville, which lies at the country's heart.
Neither desert nor promised land, Brazzaville is pure jungle. If
America represents what is known and desired, Brazzaville represents
all that is uncertain. For Rick, the journey has just begun.

Spotlight

The spotlight that shines from a tall tower and lights
up the city of Casablanca reminds people that they are always being
watched. The spotlight is a constant presence at Rick's, regularly
circling past the front doors. The spotlight first swings past the
doors immediately after Louis has assured Strasser that the murderer
of the German couriers will be found at Rick's, as if to stress
the relationship between government authority and the invasive,
spying light. The spotlight crosses Laszlo's path as he leaves Rick's
with Ilsa, underscoring the fragility of Laszlo's safety and the
fact that he is constantly being watched. Later that evening, Ilsa
returns to Rick's and opens the front door just as the spotlight
passes by, backlighting her brilliantly in the doorframe. This dramatic
image is important for several reasons. First, it marks the first
time the light actually pierces the front doors and enters Rick's.
The image also makes Ilsa look like an angel, and lets us see her
as her lovers see her. The use of light here is also a meta-filmic
comment about the artificiality of the cinematic lighting. The spotlight
reappears as Rick gazes out his window after he and Ilsa kiss in
his apartment. Even Rick and Ilsa's romance, the device suggests,
is being watched, and the war has completely altered the conditions
of their love. This change could partly explain Rick's self-sacrifice
at the end of the film. In order for Ilsa to escape the eye of the
spotlight, Rick realizes, he must let her escape to America.

Symbols

Sam's Piano

Sam's piano is the symbolic heart and soul of Rick's Café.
All the guests want to sit beside it, in part because they want
to be close to Sam, who is one of the most untainted characters
in the film. The piano itself suggests purity, which may be why
Louis doesn't even think to look there for the missing letters of
transit. The music from the piano functions as an opiate, a drug
that allows visitors to forget their worries. All is well at Rick's,
at least on the surface, when Sam is playing. Sam's resumed playing
after Ugarte's arrest, for instance, signals that everything has
returned to normal, while his closing down of the piano when Rick
and Ilsa first see each other signals that the club's peaceful innocence
has been interrupted by painful memories. When the German soldiers
take over the piano to play their national anthem, the bar's patrons
rise in revolt and defiantly sing "La Marseillaise." More than the
arrest of Ugarte, this singing proves the biggest disturbance in
the bar, and Louis is forced to shut the place down.

The piano is also a symbol of Rick's heart. Rick forbids
the playing of "As Time Goes By" so he doesn't have to wallow in
the painful memory of Ilsa and Paris. Like many of his guests, he
prefers to forget his pain. When Ilsa requests the song, Sam claims
not to remember it, but at her insistence he goes ahead and plays,
initiating the re-acquaintance of the former lovers. Sam awakens
the song on the piano, and Rick's heart wakes painfully as well.
For a while he suffers tremendously, but eventually he seems to
come to grips with his aching heart and painful past and to reemerge
a better person. Rick will leave Casablanca, but Sam and his piano
will stay behind. Having regained his real heart, Rick is free to
abandon the piano.

Laszlo

Laszlo is both a character and a symbol in Casablanca.
His symbolic elements are rooted in his upstanding, moral personality.
Before Laszlo arrives in Casablanca, Rick stirs from apathy at the
mention of his name. Laszlo is a symbol of resistance to the Nazis,
and his personal conflict of whether or not he can escape Casablanca
represents a much larger struggle for power and control. The Nazis
officially control the city, but the underground resistance has
the support of the majority of the people. The balance of power
teeters precariously between the two groups. Laszlo's ability to
escape Casablanca will be a sign as to which group may ultimately
prevail. That Laszlo was able to escape from a concentration camp
and then make his way to Casablanca indicates that the Nazi control
over the European mainland is not absolute. If Laszlo can find his
way to America, his escape will be a symbol of the power of resistance
to Nazi rule. What happens to Laszlo himself is important, but the implications
of his fate make up Casablanca's broader themes.

The Plane to Lisbon and the Letters of Transit

The plane to Lisbon is the best way to leave Casablanca,
and it represents the possibility of escape from war-torn Europe
and the first, most difficult step of the journey to America and
freedom. The letters of transit are the golden tickets out, the
exit visas that cannot be refused. Throughout the movie these letters
are what everyone wants, and whoever controls or holds the letters
has tremendous power. As Casablanca proceeds, the
power shifts hands. At first, the civic authority of Casablanca,
in the person of Louis, controls the plane's flights, and Rick,
who possesses the letters, wields this power and has control of
people's fates. Later, Rick transfers the letters to Ilsa and Laszlo,
allowing them to depart on the plane. As a result of this exchange,
the escaping refugees gain a powerful status as political symbols,
while Louis and Rick's own power in Casablanca is weakened. The
two self-sacrificing heroes have no choice but to leave the city
and start over elsewhere.

More Help

Recently I learned there are three verses to "As Time Goes By," omitted from the film music to Casablanca, sung by Dooley Wilson, and now accepted as standard. Rather than retype them here, readers can go to Wikipedia articles, (i) "As Time Goes By" and (ii) read also about the composer, Herman Hupfeld, NOT Max Steiner, who, purportedly did not like the song/verses in the first place. The complete lyrics make more sense for me now than previously, as lovely as they were/now are.

One suggestion for something that's a little confusing in the synopsis: the police officer's name is Captain Louis Renault. He should be referred to as "Renault" - not "Louis," which is his first name. This was confusing to me - and required me to go back to figure out who this "Louis" was.